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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

Review: Debunking the bunkum

By ROY HERBERT

James Randi: Psychic Investigator A series of six programmes, beginning
on 17 July at 9pm. Made by Granada Television.

One of James Randi’s characteristics, well demonstrated in this series,
is that he can stand perfectly still and listen to whatever rationale is
offered for the allegedly paranormal events or skills he is investigating,
without showing any reaction. He is, of course, a sceptic, but he insists
that he is not a debunker. He is willing to be convinced by hard evidence.
His courteous immobility invites it, but hasn’t got it yet. The $10 000
on offer from him for anyone who can perform paranormally under proper observing
conditions is safe enough.

The programmes tackle most of the well-known areas of the paranormal
and some that cannot strictly be listed under that heading, such as graphology.
Every now and then Randi, an ex-magician, demonstrates his extraordinary
ability, to fool people en masse and as individuals. A demonstration of
simple deception at the start of the first programme has the audience laughing.
A sensitive ear might detect ruefulness in some of it. In another he performs
a spoonbending and breaking that seems to me to out-Geller Geller handsomely.

Time after time, Randi organises experiments that show the results obtained
are no better than would be expected, according to chance. But none of the
mediums, psychometrists, believers in crystal power, thought transference
and so on appear shaken or even embarrassed.

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Randi used to be called ‘The Amazing Randi’. The amazing thing about
the series is that so many of the practitioners in the paranormal were willing
to appear in public to be tested. Well-known methods used by mediums, for
instance, still get results, as is clear from one man’s answer to Randi
when asked how many names for ‘connection’ to the spirit world were suggested
to him in a session. He said half a dozen. A recording of the session proved
that the number was 57.

A programme on dowsing is inconclusive and contains one ostensibly impressive
feat. A dowser, working with a pendulum on a map from which all the names
of features had been removed, correctly identifies a grid square with an
ancient monument in it. I would have taken a better than even chance myself
from a look at the map.

The programmes have to be entertaining, so they are dolled up with wordless
singing and mysterious lighting. Studio audiences are dolled up, too, with
‘celebrities’. There are rows for the programme on astrology, which reveals
that the stargazers adapt to new knowledge. Now, they say that the magnetic
fields of the planets affect DNA.

John Maddox, the editor of Nature, deplores the waste of time in investigating
paranormal claims. It is true that believers are not likely to be affected
by the results shown in Randi’s programmes. The rest of us can marvel at
Randi’s engaging, endlessly polite objectivity.